It’s difficult to accept that the word “depression” is applicable to you. You always hear
about it from your peers, on TV shows, in books, etc. It never really strikes you as something
that can attack you at any moment. I feel as if though you may not be clinically diagnosed, you can tell when it has a hold of you. Your “invincibility complex” is suddenly shattered, and at least for me, it was the first time I truly felt afraid. It began in my junior year of high school. Over the past six years, it’s grown stronger, especially when I began university. I think it’s like an inner demon, with multiple arms and claws controlling my actions, thoughts, and words. I love to paint, to sing, and write, but every time I do, I notice that he is there. In stressful classes, he brings negativity into my mind. It’s bad at the worst of times, and seemingly unbearable at the best of times. Even though you smile and laugh, it claws away at you from the inside until it breaks free. But even then you’re not really free from it. As cliché as it may sound, I always feel this overwhelming sense of darkness about it. I say things to others or think things about myself that I know aren’t of my own volition, and yet they are said anyway. It’s hard. It really is. People say they understand, but do they? Unless they have it, I hate to say that they don’t truly understand it. It’s nice to know that people care, but I sometimes feel like they are unable to care in the right ways. My family and friends always say I can talk to them, but can I? How can I tell them, or even put into words, what goes on in my head? The never ending tiredness, the stress from even the smallest of things, the sense that you are never going to amount to anything, or the hope that something comes along to take everything away before it becomes even more overwhelming are things that can’t be understood by an outsider, not unless the demon has a hold of them too. They want me to succeed, but how can I tell them that, unless this depressive demon is ripped out of me, I can’t? These notions of self-doubt are like fuel for a raging fire. It burns to talk about it, but what is one to do? All I want is to be able to stand painless and strong, for my arms to be extended, for my face free from tears, and for my mind to be peacefully empty from any sort of darkness. I want to end the hold that this “depression” has on me. For years I have fought hard, and I have won my silent battles. But that secret war within me is not over. I want to really live again, and when that time comes, I want to be me.